As the eBook market has flourished over the years, there is a massive amount of data in stores for retailers and publishers. There was a time when the publishing sector was not powered with such data. Still, digitization of the overall reading experience and marketing has killed all the inherent limitations of the industry. Last year, a total of 162 million units of eBooks were sold in the U.S. alone, contributing massively to the global eBook publishing revenue of 12.32 billion. 

Likewise, a recent report states that the global publishing industry has experienced growth over the last five years and is expected to grow further at a CAGR of 10.4%. Internet publishing, foreign investment, and easing regulatory restrictions are other benefits that will boost the industry shortly. 

E-books and E-reading devices are creating the right buzz and giving the publishing industry a makeover. In this scenario, revamping and automating the digital platform is highly critical. The website is the book’s first page for publishing houses, and readers will judge and base their decisions on it. 

How do you ensure that your website delivers consistent results and offers an engaging experience to its rampant footfall? Testing is the key, and Test Automation is the way to ensure your website’s expected performance and functionality. 

With Web Application Testing, it is imperative to address issues of the website’s functionality, security, user interface, compatibility, and performance. Test Automation provides a robust framework for running tests across browsers without alterations. Importantly, it mechanically drives the same tests with a combination of various forms of data to enhance test coverage. 

Some Key Benefits Of Test Automation are: 

• Manual intervention is less, so the possibility of errors diminishes. 

• It ensures higher ROI on the enormous investments required initially. 

• Automated tests make the process more reliable and the tests more dependable. 

• Automation helps you find bugs at an early stage. 

• You can test 24*7 from a remotely–held device as well. 

• It makes the test scripts reusable – it needs new scripts every time, even with changes in the version of the OS on the device, and the tests can recur without any errors. 

• Most importantly, it enables testing in volumes. For instance, it allows you to test thousands of mobile devices. Now, this is impossible with Manual Testing. 

Why Use Selenium? 

Selenium is the most popular freeware and open-source automation tool. Selenium Testing has immense benefits for Test Automation. Importantly, it enables record and playback for testing web applications and can run multiple scripts across various browsers. Selenium’s advantages for Test Automation hold relevance across diverse business segments. 

1. Open-Source 

As mentioned earlier, Selenium’s biggest strength is that it is freeware and a portable tool. There are no upfront direct costs, and the tool can be freely downloaded. Its community-based support is also freely available. 

2. Language Support 

Selenium supports various languages, including Java, Perl, Python, C#, Ruby, Groovy, JavaScript, and more. It has its script, but that language does not limit it. It can work with various languages – whatever the developers/testers are comfortable with. 

3. Supports Operating Systems 

Selenium can operate and support multiple Operating Systems (OS) like Windows, Mac, Linux, and UNIX. With the Selenium suite of solutions, a tailored testing suite can be created over any platform and executed on another one. For instance, you can easily create test cases using Windows OS and run them on a Linux–based system. 

4. Support across browsers 

Selenium testing offers the advantage of automating web application testing across various browsers: Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari, ensuring consistent functionality and reducing manual effort. This becomes highly resourceful while simultaneously executing and testing tests across various browsers. 

5. Support for programming languages and framework 

Selenium integrates with programming languages and various frameworks. For instance, it can integrate with ANT or Maven framework for source code compilation. Further, it can integrate with the TestNG framework for testing applications and reporting purposes. It can integrate with Jenkins or Hudson for Continuous Integration (CI) and even integrate with open-source tools to support other features. 

6. Tests across devices 

Selenium Test Automation can be implemented for mobile web application automation on Android, iPhone, and Blackberry. This can help in generating necessary results and address issues continuously. 

7. Constant updates 

Selenium support is community–based, which enables constant updates and upgrades. These upgrades are readily available and do not require specific training. This makes Selenium resourceful and cost-effective as well. 

8. Loaded Selenium Suites 

Selenium is not just a singular tool or utility; it is a loaded package of various testing tools, referred to as a Suite. Each tool is designed to cater to different testing needs and test environments’ requirements. 

Selenium can also support Selenium IDE, Grid, and Remote Control (RC). 

9. Ease of implementation 

Selenium offers a user-friendly interface that helps create and execute tests quickly and effectively. Its open-source features allow users to script their own extensions, making them easy to develop, customize actions, and even manipulate at an advanced level. 

Tests run directly across browsers; users can watch while the tests are executed. Additionally, Selenium’s reporting capabilities are one reason for choosing it, as they allow testers to extract the results and take follow-up actions. 

10. Reusability and Add-ons 

The Selenium Test Automation framework uses scripts that can be tested directly across multiple browsers. Concurrently, multiple tests can be executed with Selenium, as it covers almost all aspects of functional testing by implementing add-on tools that broaden the scope of testing. 

Another school of thought discusses some gaps in Selenium Automation Testing. For instance, Test Automation experts also say that Selenium is not an all-inclusive tool for automating the testing of web applications, as it needs third-party frameworks and language support to become absolutely functional and show the needed results. 

Selenium Testing has immense advantages, encompassing automated cross-browser testing, enhanced testing efficiency, and improved software quality. 

How a Publishing House Benefited From Our Selenium Test Automation Solutions 

Our team of experts at Cigniti collaborated with a Philadelphia-based leading academic research paper publishing house to offer Test Automation services by leveraging Selenium. The client was observing the growing popularity of its research publications, and its niche readership accessing the website had shot up. 

The publishing house needed support with its website, which required testing across browsers and Operating Systems (OS). The key challenge was to address the layout issues across different OS-device-browser combinations. This was a challenge as most of the pages were syntactically incorrect. Additionally, our team had to deal with functionality issues and JavaScript compatibility. 

By leveraging Selenium Testing, we developed a utility using BrowserStack that executed multiple scripts simultaneously across browsers/OS combinations to address the functionality issues. Finally, we achieved 100% test coverage for cross-browser compatibility. The BrowserStack utility we developed executed all test scripts across different browsers/OS combinations and identified bugs/defects much faster. 

Conclusion 

The publishing industry is highly fragmented, and statistics show that North America dominates the game. Additionally, a combination of factors such as literacy level, income level, changing lifestyle, advertiser spending, technological changes, and government regulations significantly impact industry dynamics. 

Cigniti’s Test Automation CoE takes precedence in leveraging Selenium as a tool of choice for automating web application testing, performing functional regression automation, and developing automated tests. We have worked with innovative businesses and global leaders and offered phenomenal testing strategies and solutions. 

Connect with Cigniti to leverage our unified test automation framework to overcome critical challenges in Selenium test automation and get your Website/Web Apps functionally ready for your niche audience.